The Kent County Prosecuting Attorney's Office has been asked to review the November 16, 2009, death of 30-year-old Matthew Bolick. The sole purpose of this review is to determine whether the actions of the responding officers constitute a crime.
On November 16, 2009 at approximately 9:05 PM, East Grand Rapids Police Officers were dispatched to 2110 Heather SE in response to a reported "civil domestic between a father and son" with the son being described as "out of control."
The first responding officer, Gary Parker, was approached by a man driving a black SUV and asked if he was "looking for the kid who lives there [pointing to 2110 Heather]" The driver told Officer Parker that the "kid who lives there was just beating on my car." In a subsequent interview, the driver, a neighbor of the Bolicks, more specifically told the police that Matthew Bolick punched the passenger window of his vehicle twice as if he was trying to break it, He further stated that "it appeared as if Matt was not thinking straight." Upon looking in the direction of 2110 Heather, an individual, later identified as Matthew Bolick, was seen running down the driveway toward the street. As Matthew continued to run, he passed the East Grand Rapids patrol car. At that point, Officer Parker exited his vehicle and asked him what he was doing. In response, he claimed to be "running from myself" Per the officer, he "guided" Matthew to the side of his cruiser "without physical force" and, because he appeared "highly agitated," told him to "chill out." Rather than calming down, however, Matthew, without warning, punched Officer Parker in the face and ran toward Laurel Street. The aforementioned neighbor also saw Matthew hit the officer and described it as a "sucker punch,"
After the suspect began to run, Officer Parker got back in his car in an attempt to locate him. Although it was dark, the officer could hear Matthew "yelling" and was ultimately able to find him on the west side of Laurel about "midway in the block." After locating him, the officer stopped his vehicle. At that point, Matthew "ran up to me while I stood near my car he told me to arrest him." Officer Parker then asked him a series of questions, including "where do you live?" In response, Matthew said "right down there." He then punched the officer in the face again and immediately fled on foot. At this point Officer Parker took out his electronic control device [hereinafter referred to as a tased
I A taser is an electronic control device designed to incapacitate a subject by overriding normal muscle activity through pulsed muscle tetanus. The device consists of a main unit and detachable cartridge. The taser is deployed by firing a taser cartridge, which launches two wire-tethered probes. The barbed probes impact the body, current flows from the taser through the wires and between the probes (one positive, one negative). Both probes must hit the subject for the taser to be effective.
and ran across the street to the location where Matthew had stopped running. The officer then pointed his taser at him and told him to "get on the ground." After he had repeatedly been ordered to get "face down with his hands out," Matthew started to comply but then stood up and assumed a "fighting stance." He was again warned to get on the ground and was told that if he did not do so he would be "tased." He refused to comply, was "tased" and, as a result, fell to the ground. While on the ground he was given "various verbal commands to comply such as turn over on his stomach, in addition to warning him of another tase if he got up," He again refused to follow commands, stood up and was "tased" a second time. Matthew then "grabbed the wires or probes with his bare hands," broke them off and then ran across the street toward 2110 Heather. Officer Parker gave chase in an attempt to catch him before he got home for fear the situation could "quickly escalate" due to the "availability of any number of items" within the house that could be used as weapons.
During the foot pursuit, Officer Parker was now joined by East Grand Rapids Sgt. Brian Davis. Both officers repeatedly ordered the fleeing suspect to stop and, when he failed to do so, they attempted to immobilize him by activating their tasers. Their efforts, however, had no apparent effect on Matthew as he successfully eluded the officers and entered the kitchen of his residence at 2110 Heather.
Both officers followed the suspect into the kitchen area and repeatedly gave him "loud commands" to get on the floor. Rather than complying, Matthew again "got into a fighting posture" and punched Officer Parker in the shoulder. At this point he was "drive stunned2" and wrestled to the ground. Once on the floor, the officers attempted to handcuff him but he continued to fight and resist. The officers repeatedly ordered him to comply and again warned him that he would be tased if he continued to resist; he was ultimately "drive stunned" and successfully handcuffed behind his back.
After handcuffing Matthew, the Grand Rapids Police Department was called for assistance and American Medical Response [hereinafter referred to as AMR] was re-contacted and asked to "step it up" [i.e. hutry] . After having been handcuffed and while awaiting assistance, Matthew continued to actively resist; i.e. he repeatedly tried to "buck" and "grab" the officers as they attempted to hold down his legs and torso. The officers continually told him to "calm down" and asked him a series of questions related to his behavior; his general response was "profane language" and "repeated attempts to get up off the floor." In order to finally control Matthew, he was again "drive stunned."
Shortly after the East Grand Rapids officers had handcuffed and gained control of Matthew, officers from the Grand Rapids Police Department arrived on scene. Because both East Grand Rapids officers had been struggling with him for some time, several
2 Placing the two terminals of a Laser against a suspect and activating it without a cartridge and the accompanying wire-tethered probes.
Before responding to 2110 Heather, Sgt. Davis met with Mr. Bolick at the Breton Village D&W gas station. Mr. Bolick told Sgt. Davis, in part, that his son, Matthew, was bleeding from cuts he had received from having jumped through a broken plate glass window. Consequently, Sgt. Davis called dispatch and requested AMR while driving from the D&W to Heather.
Grand Rapids officers relieved them and took over the responsibility of restraining Matthew until ambulance personnel arrived. Upon arrival, all of the Grand Rapids officers describe the area surrounding where Matthew was being restrained as having "glass all over the floor from a large broken picture window" and looking in "disarray from a struggle." Further, even though restrained, the suspect was described as "kicking, squirming and attempting to grab" the East Grand Rapids officers. In addition, whenever the East Grand Rapids officers told him to calm down, Matthew responded with "f... you" followed by further "flailing, kicking and grabbing."
Based on his observations, training and the information provided to him by the East Grand Rapids officers [i.e. the suspect's exhibited behavior of "extreme agitation, hostility, exceptional strength and endurance without apparent fatigue"], Grand Rapids Officer Joshua Mollan advised the others that the suspect was "potentially suffering from excited delirium." As such, they became extremely watchful of his physical condition and began to monitor his breathing. During this same time frame, medical personnel from AMR arrived on scene.
Because he was continuing to struggle, the decision was made to utilize an AMR backboard with restraints in order to safely remove Matthew from the residence. Before this could be accomplished, however, the officers began to notice Matthew was having difficulty breathing, was turning pale and his lips were turning blue. Consequently, the handcuffs were removed and he was placed on a backboard without restraints and taken immediately to the ambulance. Despite resuscitative attempts at the scene, Matthew was pronounced dead at 10:16 PM.
An autopsy was performed at Spectrum-Blodgett on November 17, 2009, by Dr. David A. Start, MD. Dr. Start concluded that Matthew Bolick died from acute exhaustive mania [excited delirium syndrome] and that an unspecified acute psychosis contributed to his death. "The autopsy findings in conjunction with the preterminal events and resuscitative record are all consistent with sudden death by acute exhaustive mania. The manner of death is classified as natural as no drug substances of significance were identified and the acute psychosis is a psychiatric disorder [not caused by drugs and/or trauma]."
Acute exhaustive mania is a medical condition characterized by agitation, physical hyperactivity and mental delusions. The condition is often associated with physical violence [to oneself or others], physiologically associated with hyperthermia [increased body temperature; Matthew's postmortem temperature was 102.5 degrees], tachycardia [increased heart rate] and increased epinephrine [adrenaline]. Acute exhaustive mania can result in sudden cardiac death due to an arrhythmia [abnormal heart rhythm]. It can occur as a result of drug intoxication [toxicology studies, however, were negative for drugs of abuse and negative for ethanol] or as a complication of a purely psychiatric disease. A more recently used term is excited delirium syndrome, which would include sudden death in individuals with acute exhaustive mania with or without drug toxicity.
Dr. Start concluded that Matthew died from a cardiac arrhythmia due to acute exhaustivemania. He based his findings, in part, on the fact that Matthew had been "acting in a
bizarre fashion, was delusional, and exhibited marked physical agitation including harming himself with a glass window." He also exhibited hyperthermia and unusual strength [not uncommon for this condition], particularly for someone 5'4" and 128 pounds.
Dr. Start further found no evidence of significant head or neck injuries and no evidence of traumatic asphyxia or neck compression. He also found no evidence of a puncture wound consistent with having been struck with a taser deployed probe. Dr. Start did find injuries consistent with the use of a taser in the 'drive-stun' mode on Matthew's right lower chest, right upper arm and lumbar back. However, because of the location of the injuries and the sequence of events, Dr. Start concluded that the use of the tasers played no "physiologic role in the death."
Interviews with family and friends were subsequently conducted in an attempt to determine what had precipitated the November 16th incident. According to family members, Matthew "had not been himself' for approximately two weeks; corresponding with his return from a trip to California. He reportedly stopped going to work, continually wore the same clothes, and, according to one of his brothers, bad in all likelihood not showered or shaved for the entire two-week period. He was alternatively described as "acting very strange," "talking to himself," "delusional," "paranoid" and "possessed." For example, he had allegedly said he had gotten a girl pregnant and that she was worth $400 million, he was supposed to throw out the first pitch in the World Series, the President of the United States was going to pick him up and that there were Secret Service and CIA personnel on the roof of the house. In addition, it appeared to family members that he was "fighting some kind of demon" because he would talk to himself ["get out of me you aren't going to beat me"] and laugh inappropriately.
On the 16th, it is reported that he started "acting very strange" at approximately 6:00 PM. His brother Jonathon described him as "acting like he was possessed" and doing "ritual type" things around the house [this behavior is consistent with what his father had seen on other occasions; i.e. his son was involved in some "ritualistic thing" that included stomping his feet three times and stating he is a demon]. Matthew told his brother that he [the brother] and one of the family dogs were "Navajos" and began chasing the dog around the house. After observing this behavior, Jonathon left the house and did not return until after the police arrived.
Matthew's brother Kevin told police that his father picked him up at Grand Rapids Community College at approximately 8:30 PM on the 16th. Upon arriving home, he had gone into the house and noticed broken glass in the kitchen area. He said that at this point he thought someone had broken into the house and began yelling "who is here." He then saw his brother Matt outside the window and asked him if he had broken the window. Matt's response was "hell yes I broke the window." Although he could not remember all the specifics, Kevin claimed to have heard Matt yelling "you are not going to beat me." Kevin further described Matt as being in "his own little world." He said that Matt started pacing back and forth in the backyard and suddenly jumped back through the broken glass window [cutting himself in the process] and landed on the kitchen table.
Kevin said that Matt then went outside after which he could hear him yelling at their father to "get the back inside." According to his father, Matt had "lost it" and had "threatened to kill me." At this juncture, Mr. Bolick and Kevin left the residence, called 911 and met Sgt. Davis at the Breton Village D&W gas station.
The tasers carried by all of the officers involved in this incident were subsequently examined to determine whether they had been activated, Analysis revealed that the tasers carried by Officer Parker and Sgt. Davis had been while the tasers carried by the Grand Rapids officers had not. Consequently, the two East Grand Rapids tasers as well as the four spent cartridges and numerous laser probes and wires relating to the fired cartridges were sent to CRT Less Lethal, INC., in Snohomish, Washington for further analysis. A report received February 12, 2010, states, in part, that an examination of both tasers revealed that each "functioned properly with a clear, consistent spark for all test firings. .... and that the peak loaded phase voltage, main phase charge and pulse duration were all within manufacturer's specifications."
In addition, an examination of the cartridges and wires found that they were "consistent with typical deployment." Lastly, an analysis of the probes, wires and cartridges led the forensic examiner to conclude "that the intended subject of the deployment of the four cartridges was not significantly affected by the taser cartridge deployments. The subject likely received little or no electrical energy from these devices as none of the submitted probes exhibited evidence of a completed circuit required for taser effect."
In other words, it appears that both tasers worked properly and that Matthew was "not significantly affected" by the four deployments that occurred prior to him being restrained in the residence. A review of the video attached to each taser as well as Dr. Start's findings [i.e. the lack of puncture wounds from a probe] appears to support this conclusion. While the initial deployment knocked Matthew to the ground, he quickly recovered and was able to run back to his residence at 2110 Heather. Beyond concluding that both tasers "functioned properly...within manufacturer's specifications," CRT Less Lethal, INC, offered no opinion in regard to the use of the tasers in "drive stun" mode,
In conclusion, it is important to reiterate the purpose of this review: were the officers' actions on the night in question criminal? It is not whether another course of action could have been taken. It is not whether, with the full benefit of hindsight, this tragic death could have been avoided. From the prosecutor's perspective, the question is simpler, though no less profound: was the death of Matthew Bolick the result of a criminal act? A review of the facts and the findings and opinions of Dr. Start and CRT Less Lethal, INC, indicates that the answer to these questions is no, Accordingly, criminal charges will not be filed with respect to the November 16, 2009, incident at 2110 Heather.
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William A. Forsyth
Kent County Prosecuting Attorney